Relocation Research Basics

I previously mentioned leaving San Diego County for someplace cheaper. Ever since I wrote that post, I have been meaning to do a post about how I researched where to go when I decided that I wanted to leave San Diego County.

I went to San Diego County to get myself well. I have a serious medical condition that is known to benefit from a coastal environment. I figured I would be stuck by the coast forever, but, to my surprise, my condition improved enough that I stopped going to the beach constantly. I initially went every day. Over time, this gradually tapered off.

I have alimony and I do freelance writing online. This means my income is portable. I can basically go anywhere I want in the U.S. without a problem.

For various reasons -- some health related, some ideological -- I plan to continue living without a car after I get off the street. I spent some time looking around San Diego County and ultimately concluded there were no neighborhoods that really appealed to me. I want to be in walking distance of certain amenities.

I do use public transit occasionally, but I prefer to walk everywhere as much as possible. I don't mind taking the bus once in a while, but I don't want to become dependent on public transit on a routine/frequent basis.

So, I found myself not liking any of the housing options in San Diego County, unexpectedly free to leave the coast without it being a health catastrophe and it was dawning on me that housing in San Diego County is wicked expensive. My alimony and earned income would go a lot further if I just went someplace else.

Thus, I began researching where to go.

I set up a private BlogSpot blog and invited my two sons to it. We made a list of criteria, such as eateries that work well for us and the names of our banks and some other stores we felt were important. We came up with some criteria, such as I would rather stay in California, but I would be willing to consider a few other places. This is largely related to my health issues.

One of my problems is that I am allergic to ragweed. Along the West Coast is a zone of minimal ragweed. I want to stay in that zone. So there are actually parts of Oregon and Washington I would be willing to consider if I can't make anything in California work.

I am telling you all this to say this: Make a list of criteria related to your quality of life that you want met. Don't just say "Oh, any place cheap will do." You won't be happy if you do that.

Then I went to http://www.city-data.com/ and clicked on California and sorted by city size. I copied and pasted a list of cities in California that were above a certain size threshold into a document and I began investigating those cities.

I used http://www.bestplaces.net/ to compare cost of living against San Diego County. I was looking for something within California that was substantially cheaper than San Diego County. If it met that initial criteria, I then googled up some basic info. I checked the Wikipedia page for the city in question and checked some of the other information available on Citi-Data.com and BestPlaces.net. I looked at things like weather.

I also had a list of eateries, banks, etc and I went to Google Maps, entered the name of the city in question and checked to see if it had the things that mattered to me most. Because I do freelance writing online, I also checked out the library system for prospective cities. This will matter less to me when I am back in housing, but, for now, I am still very much library dependent. I wanted a good library system.

I wanted a city above a certain size in part because I don't want to be homeless in a small town. It makes me too visible and they don't have the resources. I would be willing to consider moving to a small town if it involved buying a cheap house and getting off the street, but, as long as I am still homeless, I want to be in a somewhat larger city. I think that works better.

Having left San Diego County, I am currently someplace where I feel better (because there is less ragweed), so my productivity is up, and prices here are substantially less than in San Diego County. For that and other reasons, my quality of life has gone way up since I left San Diego County.

So, if you have some kind of retirement check, disability check, alimony or other unearned income or if you just want to start making money online like I do, moving someplace more affordable can be one of the quickest, easiest ways to increase your quality of life and put a home more within reach.

If you are in San Diego County, here is the bus route I took to get out of San Diego County for less than the cost of taking Grey Hound.